


liminality

by amosanguis



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, assassin's control liminal spaces and that's why we get target confessions, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: There’s this space, an Other Space, the In-Between, that Assassins have learned to inhabit. Callum has questions.
Relationships: Aguilar de Nerha/Baptiste, Callum Lynch/Moussa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	liminality

**Author's Note:**

> **Spanish**  
>  "No sé" - "I don't know."

-z-

There’s this space, an Other Space, the In-Between, that Assassins have learned to inhabit – not quite a new plane of existence, but not quite the one their world exists on either, but between the two. It was just simply Other. It is where they take their targets for their last words, to witness their memories and maybe learn their secrets.

Callum struggles with _how_ it’s done. He knows that he can do it – has done it as Aguilar and did it himself when he took Alan Rikkin’s life – but he still doesn’t know _how_. Or even _why_ and finally convinces himself to ask Moussa about it.

“Y’know,” Moussa says, his eyes raking up and down Callum’s body, watching as Callum removes his gear from their training session, “Assassins rule the in-betweens, the transitional, all of that which is one thing becoming another.”

He waits until Callum meets his eyes.

“I’m sure Aguilar has shown you how,” Moussa says, more statement then question.

“Yeah,” Callum says, remembering that first assassination – not that first _kill_ , but that first purposeful _assassination_. “I just don’t know _how_ it’s done. That’s my question.”

Moussa picks up one the training throwing knives, rubbing the pad of his thumb along its dulled edge. “Don’t think too hard about it,” he suggests, replacing the knife. “Just follow your instincts, pioneer, they will tell you what to do.”

“You’re not helpful,” Callum says, rolling his eyes as he steps away from the gear table. He pulls his shirt over his head and walks towards the shower, feeling Moussa’s smirk at his back.

-

“The Other Space,” Callum starts, gesturing with his chopsticks, “do you think that’s how I was able to be inducted by my dead mother? See my ancestors?”

Moussa shrugs, says, “Probably? Probably not? Could’ve been an—” at the same time Lin pokes her head around the corner and says, “Definitely.”

Callum looks between them, wondering briefly which to believe.

“Of everyone in this room,” Lin says, motioning to the three of them with her hand, “whose ancestor was a Mentor? Hm? Who built a brotherhood from the ground up? Anyone else? Didn’t think so.” She comes more fully into the room, clapping her hands together before getting ready to speak.

Assassins spend so much time there, in the Other and In-Between, Lin explains, it’s where most of them (“us,” she says; “most of _us_ ”) believe they will go when they die. They are of the shadows – work in the _dark_ to serve the _light_ , and all that – they are seen, but no one knows their names; they exist, but leave no footprint. And so it is to neither heaven nor hell, nor any other afterlife of the common religions, that their soul goes to when it leaves their body.

“So, we go to the In-Between?” Callum asks, sounding more earnest than he intends. “That’s our heaven?”

“With what you saw,” Lin lifts an eyebrow, as if daring him, “will you tell me I’m wrong?”

Callum opens his mouth to do just that—

—except he can’t find the words. So he turns away from her and back to his food, now gone cold, and chews on what she’s told him.

Moussa himself even looks thoughtful.

-

There are days when Callum finds only Spanish on his tongue; days where he’s more Aguilar and Moussa is more Baptiste and Lin is more Shao Jun, and no one is speaking the same language – each one stalking the other two and all three just barely holding onto enough sense to remember not to kill each other.

Their safehouse was indeed a brilliant example of their collective madness managing to co-exist.

And there must be something Aguilar finds incredibly charming about Baptiste, because Callum has woken up more than once with Moussa in his bed, the both of them naked and stinking of sex.

“If they’re gonna do this, they could at least clean us up afterwards,” Callum complains, reaching around Moussa’s head for the body wash – all modesty had been lost long before they’d even met each other – and squeezes some into Moussa’s washcloth before his own.

Moussa laughs, loud and careless, and Callum can’t help but join him.

The next time they kiss, there’s only English in their heads and no excuses. Not that they need one. Lin finds them making out in the kitchen and she rolls her eyes when they jump apart.

“Please,” she says, moving around them to grab a beer from the fridge, “it’s not like your ancestors are shy – I’ve already seen this. Just be quieter than they are if that’s something you two can manage.”

Moussa gives her a wink before he grabs Callum’s hand and drags him out of the kitchen, “No promises.”

-

“Do you think _we_ ’ll go to the Other and In-Between?” Callum asks, gesturing to himself and Moussa. “When we die?”

Moussa just blinks at him over the rim of his coffee.

Callum blinks back.

Look, there’s only so much to do here – in this little safehouse sea-side shack, itself a form of the Other and In-Between, located somewhere on the Irish coast – from training and fucking and entertain one’s madness and deep conversation, and Callum was still sore from the first two, had no interest in the third, so Moussa was just going to have to put up with the fourth option.

“Guess we’ll find out eventually,” Moussa says, voice still sleep-rough.

“Do you think it’s just Assassins?” Callum presses. “What about Assassins-turned-Templars? Or Templars-turned-Assassins? Do you have to be born into—”

Moussa stands up and walks away.

Callum watches him leave, and spots Aguilar sitting in the corner, leaning against the wall. They lock eyes.

Third option it was, then. He’d entertain his madness.

“Do you know?” Callum asks.

“ _No sé_ ,” Aguilar answers with a shrug of his shoulders.

Maybe not.

Callum returns to his own coffee with a sigh.

He finishes his mug and is rinsing it clean when Moussa slides up next to him to do the same.

“I’ve finished my coffee,” Moussa says, setting his cup on the counter, “ask me again.”

Callum smirks and takes a breath to do just that.

-z-

End.


End file.
